Easthampton schools facing $900,000 deficit with the failure of $1.4 million override

Easthampton's new high school is seen under construction in September. Voters two years ago supported a debt exclusion override to build this new high school. Tuesday voters rejected an override to pay to restore positions.The Republican file | John Suchocki

Without more aid, the School Committee will be looking at what could be $900,000 in additional cuts, Superintendent Nancy Follansbee said.

Voters Tuesday rejected a $1.4 million Proposition 2 ½ property tax override for the schools, 4,816 to 3,878, or 55 to 45 percent.

Officials said the money would have allowed restoring 19 positions, and provided more funding for special education and for foreign languages at the middle and elementary schools, among other programs.

The schools were hoping to add $255,000 back into the budget to restore several positions for the remainder of the current school year.

“We can hope the economy gets better faster,” said School Committee Chairman Peter Gunn, something he is skeptical of. Otherwise, “we’ll be forced to economize again. We’re into the bone now.”

Follansbee said she was meeting with her leadership team Wednesday afternoon to begin talking about the school budget for the next fiscal year.

She said it was too soon to determine how many people will be cut, but said jobs are all that’s left to cut. She said she’s “disappointed that it did not pass. I certainly understand it was a financial challenge that each family had to make.”

But without the funding, “We’ll be in a time of great challenge,” she said. “We have really been operating in a gap in funding. We’ve done the best we can to maintain a high quality school system. We’re at the end of the rope.”

He said he was “sympathetic to an extent” to voters who said they couldn’t afford the $200 or so dollars in additional property taxes that the override would have cost the average homeowner.

“I don’t think (all) 4,800 were unable. I think they were were unwilling. I think that’s a mistake on their part,” he said.

He said the quality of a district’s schools affects home prices, and with the system facing more cuts, he expects that more people might leave the district.

He said two parents sent him emails Wednesday morning about moving their children to other districts under the state's school choice law. That will only make things more difficult, he said, because it costs more to send students outside the district than to educate them here.

“We have very mobile parents. Every time a kid leaves, that comes out of the mayor’s budget,” he said. “That can become a drain.”

The district has 193 students who currently opt to go to schools in other districts, costing the city $1,141,554.

“We will continue to do our very best. We’ll have less,” Gunn said.

“It’s not going to be a horror show. It’s going to be really hard.”

Voters two years ago approved a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion override to build a new high school. Some felt that was enough of a tax burden for now.

Voter Robyn Rawson supported the debt exclusion for the $39.2 million high school two years ago but opposed the override now. “It’s hard to come back” and ask for more money. “I think it was poor planning,” she said election night.

Gunn doesn’t expect an override to be brought back to voters any time soon.
“It’s a lot to ask,” he said.

He is hoping that some who opposed the override will run for the School Committee next year. “To the folks who voted no, come out and help us figure out a better way,” he said.